A new solution from Patrick Townsend Security Solutions marks a giant step forward in encryption key management.

By Chris Smith

I was listening to a presentation on security and encryption key management at last summer's OCEAN conference when the speaker made a point eminently clear to the audience: It's not your encryption solution that is a challenge to manage, it's your encryption keys that take some finesse.

While Internet security breaches have increased noticeably of late, individual dangers are morphing into risks to entire countries.

By Chris Smith

The profusion of malware and the sophistication of attacks on personal, business, and now state entities seem to be increasing at a rate and level that is difficult even for security professionals to address.

Let's examine both sides of the security regulations debate.

By Pat Botz

Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX), government regulations passed in 2002 primarily as a response to egregious corporate behavior (a la Enron and others), turned six years old on July 30. Much has been said and written about SOX and its kin (HIPAA, GLBA, PCI DSS, SAS 70, etc.) in those six years as to whether these government regulations and industry standards actually help protect investors and consumers or whether they are merely a costly noose around the neck of U.S. businesses, strangling productivity for no discernable benefit. Now that SOX is six, is it any more obvious as to whether regulations and standards have made a positive difference?

By Paul Howard
For many organizations, the need to add to or introduce security in order to meet regulatory compliance is seen as a serious burden being imposed upon them with no defined advantages. This article examines security from all angles and exposes how it can be perceived as an asset and/or a burden to an organization.  

The chances of travelers losing sensitive data riding on laptops, mobile devices, or USB drives are running high today for anyone who doesn't effectively encrypt their data.

By Chris Smith

We usually think of encrypting data as a way to protect it from hackers and criminals, but did you ever consider that the U.S. federal government can now search your laptop without probable cause?

The increasingly heavy reliance on a highway as dangerous as the Internet can mean only one thing: The practice of encrypting everything is likely just over the horizon.

By Chris Smith

The Internet just in the past year has become a dangerous place indeed. This is ironic since during that same year, more people than ever are using the Internet for a growing list of purposes from personal dating to bill paying. Apart from hard statistics that document the increase in malware and phishing schemes, it seems every time I run a virus check lately, I find something has latched onto my system. With identify theft and data loss/leakage on the rise and compliance regulations directing us to follow ever-better security practices, the days of allowing data to remain unencrypted may soon be coming to a close.

Bytware's use of QR Codes on its promotional literature at COMMON challenges the widespread U.S. use of a more primitive barcode technology.

By Chris Smith

Have you ever stood in front of the self-serve checkout scanner in the supermarket trying to get your cookies to be read by the barcode scanner? Personally, I admire the brave souls who take anything more than a small number of items to the self-serve counter. Sometimes you can scan in everything you are buying, and sometimes you can't. Of course, that's why there is an attendant standing in the middle between the rows of scanners: to help. At least, I hope that's why she's there and not because store management thinks people will cheat and skip scanning an item or two.

By Chris Smith

Worried about viruses, worms, hackers, spam, and unwanted Web content? IBM released a new security appliance this week that promises to simplify and fortify small business networks.